


The Wrong That's Been Done.

by LupusScintilla (inkandblade)



Series: Bubblegum [6]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek Hale, Alpha Talia Hale, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Gen, M/M, Not Beta Read, Not-Regency, Oblivious Stiles, Omega Stiles Stilinski, Werewolf Derek Hale, Werewolf Stiles Stilnski, song!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-03
Updated: 2017-08-03
Packaged: 2018-12-10 14:34:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11693694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkandblade/pseuds/LupusScintilla
Summary: “Tell me, young Omega Stilinski, why I should grant this request?”The few times before that Stiles had seen the Hale Alpha Matriarch, she had not worn a mien one could truthfully call kind, but at this moment she was dripping absolute disdain. She was perfectly at ease, however, despite her ill opinion of the Omega standing before her.





	The Wrong That's Been Done.

“Tell me, young Omega Stilinski, why I should grant this request?” 

The few times before that Stiles had seen the Hale Alpha Matriarch, she had not worn a mien one could truthfully call kind, but at this moment she was dripping absolute disdain. She was perfectly at ease, however, despite her ill opinion of the Omega standing before her. She had no reason not to be. She was in her own drawing room, with her fine furnishings and extensive staff and innumerable other rooms at her disposal. This was her splendid city-residence, a enormous house that was said to be the smallest of the Hale Pack’s many estates. Her family was not one to treat with anything but respect; they were not only wealthy beyond the comprehension of most, but they’d also long kept their place in society, despite the ever present threat of those who barely tolerated the elevation of Werewolves to places of influence and honor.

Mieczysław Stiles Stilinski, only part of the tonne due to an accident of his birth, needed to keep that foremost in his mind. This was not an Alpha who would suffer being trifled with. Yet, despite the very real, and very new, urge he felt to bare his neck to this woman, Stiles made himself simply continue to look slightly downwards as he answered. He didn’t want to seem indecorous in her presence, but neither did he wish to appear as completely placid or meek at this point. It may be the norm, and exceedingly fashionable for Omegas of the tonne, but Stiles did not wish to pretend that he was something that he was not. He had not lead the life of a proper Omega, and that was something he would not be able to hide for long, and the idea of attempting to fool a Werewolf was as absurd as it was potentially dangerous to his future station, if not his person.

Stiles focussed on the woman’s intricate hairstyle a moment, and let his natural curiosity—he’d long wondered how women created the magnificent coiffures they often did—take hold just long enough to calm his mind before he spoke. “Alpha Hale, I have come to realize, just this evening past, that my most recent actions were not what I believed, nor intended them, to be. I have come to assure you that I had no desire to insult your good family nor name, and that I,” Stiles breathed as deeply as he knew he could do without disturbing the cut of his best jacket, “can affirm to you that I did not, in any way, purposefully set out to offend, nor spurn the attentions of, your son and heir.”

Alpha Hale lifted one very annoyed looked eyebrow and, though no one would believe it if Stiles reported it to them, wrinkled her nose in his direction and inhaled. “I would like nothing better than to reject your request outright, Omega Stilinski, and yet your heart did not skip as you made your declaration, and you stink of a cloying regret. I will not pretend that I can understand how one could so blatantly act to cause offense and then claim to have no knowledge of it, however—” she stood and tugged at her waistcoat, she was a small woman, but despite the lack of education in Werewolf etiquette that had him in this unenviable position, Stiles knew that power in ‘Wolves came from something other than their physicality “—my son appears to have his heart set on continuing his efforts at Courting you, no matter how appallingly you’ve treated him his thus far. I will hear what you have to say.”

Stiles lifted his chin a little, and then, quite deliberately, tipped his head to the side in a show of deference he’d only ever witnessed between ‘Wolves he’d seen at business in the market. He may not like the fact that those of the Omega persuasion were generally seen as gentle and compliant, but even he knew that there were times he should put aside his pride. He was an Omega Human, only elevated from his family’s humble station due to the fact that his biological designation made him a rare, and coveted, prize. Had he known a month before today what he learned late yesterday evening, he was sure he would have done at least some good at earning his way into this woman’s good graces. He had not known, however, and he had failed spectacularly at what he had believed he was on his way to achieving. Stiles was, despite recent evidence to the contrary, no fool. He knew that the attention and treatment he would receive during the Courting Season was the best he’d ever garner. He would be pampered and spoiled until he formally accepted the suit of an Alpha, and then all others, and eventually the one he married, would consider him no longer worth the effort. He’d become simply an object with which to breed. He’d have a title, a near perpetually round-belly, and a set allowance per year he could use to ensure his father lived out his days well. Stiles’ spouse would own him and breed him and care for him only in that capacity. He’d heard whispers that the life of an Alpha Werewolf’s Omega was better than that of one married to a Human, however, and that was one of the reasons he’d originally set his sights upon the handsome young Derek Hale. It wasn’t why he’d continued his—unfortunately horribly misguided—attempts, however. The Alpha appeared kind-hearted and tolerant of much that others in his position did not countenance. The man was quiet and thoughtful, and his smile, the few times Stiles had been privileged enough to witness it, was warm and soft. 

Stiles summoned his sweetest voice and attempted to hold it steady in his throat as he pulled his shoulders back and stood straight again, his head no longer tilted. “Alpha Hale, I have come to beg permission, if you will grant it, to have your son accompany me on a turn around the Square, or—” Stiles stopped himself mid-sentence and rethought his request. Walking in the Square or around town was considered kinder to the Omega being Courted as it was easier on the legs of those thought weaker and on the shoes of those forced to conform to certain ridiculous fashions. However, Stiles had already been so blind concerning the etiquette of ‘Wolf-specific traditions; he should at least show the woman he needed permissions from that he had some knowledge of her kind: a space less crowded, less noisy, and closer to the nature of the land would be far more suitable to impress her, and to set her son at ease. Though they were unlikely to find a completely comfortable place for a ‘Wolf to walk in the city, there were areas that would be more pleasant than most. “Perhaps, if it pleases your son, I’d be honored for him to escort me in a turn around Halthom Park?” 

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Very well, young man. If my son is agreeable, I will allow you one last chance. You will of course need more suitable attire, I’d not want you ruining your finery. I’ll have a carriage sent for you around this time tomorrow—”

“Of course,” Stiles blurted out, realizing too late that he’d done the unthinkable and interrupted an Alpha while she was speaking. He’d been shocked into the ill decorum by the ease at, and possibly the true reason of, why she was sending him away. Stiles should have realized that the Alpha son he had been so badly treating, even if it was without intention, would have other engagements today. It was immediately obvious to him; the Alpha Matriarch would not truthfully be calling Stiles’ attire fine, as even if it was the best he’d ever owned, it was of a poorer quality than that of the servant who’d answered the Hales’ door to him. And, even if she suggested otherwise, he’d be certain to wear it tomorrow if he did have a chance to spend time with the man he’d so clumsily and wickedly spurned until this moment. Stiles would ruin his shoes, and his fine jacket, and coat, and all the hose he’d even owned if he had the chance of convincing Derek Hale that he was not the socially clumsy oath that he’d painted himself to be. If Stiles failed, whichever other Alpha had the misfortune of being his next possible suitor would simply have to deal with him in his only other pair of shoes. It was his belly that was truly wanted in all this, anyway.

The Alpha Matriarch raised her eyebrows and her nostrils flared. “Am I to understand, young Omega, that you had hoped my son would be without other engagements this morning? It seems quite presumptuous of you considering your lack of decorum until now.”

Stiles was sure his cheeks, with his damnable Omega tendencies, were certain to now be nearing scarlet, even as they’d been pink tinged for the entire time he’d been in the Hales’ drawing room. He considered, at this moment, that he’d quite likely finally lost all chance at gaining what he’d come in an attempt to secure. He would be put out of the drawing room, and the house, and the lives of the Hales, in a matter of minutes, and at this point all he might hope is that he had not permanently damaged the reputation of his future spouse, any future spouse, in the eyes of such an influential Pack.

Once more, Stiles did his best to swallow his now bruised, and atrociously battered, pride. He lowered his eyes, and hating himself for making it a necessity, conjured every skerrick of Omega wile he had in himself to appease the offended woman. “Alpha Hale, I apologize for my assumption and design. If you wish, I might simply beg a few moments of your son’s time, in order to beseech his forgiveness. I would then, at your leave, make certain not to trouble him, nor your Pack, again.”

Alpha Hale stepped closer to him, but did not breathe in heavily again. Stiles did not know if he should be relieved at her lack of focused attention, or embarrassed by her not wishing to smell anything of him again.

“Before I grant you anything more, Omega Stilinski, I would have you answer a question. Despite your apparent inability to respond politely to even the most simple Courting overture from a properly educated young ‘Wolf, you appear to have some knowledge of Werewolves in general. I will assume then, that you understand I am able to not only ascertain certain information from the scents about and from your person, but also that I am capable of listening to the beating of your heart, and that it allows me to discern your truths from your untruths.”

Stiles swallowed hard and kept his eyes down. “Yes, Alpha, I am very aware.” He’d long since stopped trying to fool Scott, the only ‘Wolf he knew well, with blatant fibs. He had learned slowly to converse his way around them, but he doubted that the Alpha Matriarch of an old, wealthy Werewolf Pack would be as simply hoodwinked as a boy who had believed the moon to be made of cheese until well past his seventeenth year. 

“Well then, Omega Stilinski, answer me one simple question. Were you purposefully spurning my son’s advances?” 

Stiles resisted licking his lips, and lifted his head to look her in the eye. He didn’t think it would make much difference to a ‘Wolf, but his father had always taught him that truth, no matter how unpleasant, was best presented head on. “I did not, in any way, nor at any stage, wish to spurn your son’s advances, Alpha Hale. I was, in fact, behaving under the impression that my responses and actions were rather designed to achieve the opposite.” 

Stiles could feel the dreaded threat of tears building in his eyes, and was glad that he’d managed to speak what he could without his words dissolving into hysterics or sobbing. An annoyance or not, and something looked down upon as weak or not, his emotions were what they were. One of his only memories of his mother, before her untimely passing, was of her assuring him that free emotions were, in actuality, one of the things that made an Omega strong.

“Again,” the Alpha stated, “you believe yourself to be speaking the truth.” She tipped her head to the side and suddenly she had the appearance of one far, far more welcoming. “Come, child. Sit with me here and perhaps we will settle your nervous nature with some tea. I may seem like a cold and distant old woman, but I am weak to your tears in the same way as any other Alpha, and a mother besides.” She stepped back to the chaise she’d been sat upon when Stiles had entered the room and smoothed her hand along the seat. She patted it in invitation. “Here, sit with me and explain how it is that you did what you did and said what you did and believed it would enamour you further to my child and, dare I say, to myself.”

Stiles breathed in and pulled back his shoulders a little further and allowed himself a moment to tug at the cuffs of his jacket. It was cut high and tight, and he did not enjoy sitting in it, but he would. The Alpha waved over the back of the chair at one of her servants, then tucked herself into the corner as Stiles took his place next to her. Stiles tried to remember what he had been taught about sitting, before coming to the city, and tried to forget all the lies he’d been ladened with over the last month. He looked down at this gloved hands and drew one over the other in his lap, tucked his legs to the side with a barely there cross of his ankles, and looked back up just as a servant appeared with a tray of tea and sweet morsels. He could smell the sugar, and craved it so, but he would not ask for anything until it was offered. That, he well knew, was even more important in the house of a ‘Wolf than anywhere else.

“Go ahead, dear,” the Alpha said. “Tell me your tale. The tea shall steep well if we wait a few more moments.”

Stiles nodded, breathed in, and begun. He dared a quick look at the Alpha’s now kind eyes, then lowered his own again, speaking more to his own knees than her. “My mother passed when I was barely eleven-years-old. My father, a magistrate, did all that he could for his Omega child in such a small town and without much to spend on lessons and the like. This is my nineteenth summer, and as such, it was decided that we should delay no more in my Presentation. We took board on the edge of the city with a family who hail from the same county as we, and spent the first week of our time here interviewing Abigails in reach of my father’s purse. When he chose, he did so as the Beta’s name was familiar, the same as our host family’s son’s betrothed. Alpha Scott McCall is a Werewolf, and his intended, Alison, is a Beta Human, and we thought that her cousin would thus be a fine choice for who would guide me through what is still, I’m afraid, a very daunting concept to one whose only education was the books my father could afford.”

He spared Alpha Hale a look and she tilted her head again. “And you were aiming, specifically, at attracting the suit of a Werewolf.” There was no judgement in her tone, Stiles decided, she was simply stating a fact. “It is a good choice for you, I believe. Human Alphas, in my experience, have never truly understood, nor valued Omegas, and certainly not Omega men. Also, child, please be assured, no Hale will judge you on your lack of formal lessons.” She reached out and laid one hand on the teapot, then pulled it back. “A little longer yet. So, you engaged the service of an Abigail to assist you in your preparations for the Courting Season.”

Stiles should, perhaps, not have been relaxing as much as he was, but the Alpha Matriarch’s kind tone and reassuring words were doing much for his state of mind. He could see, even if he shouldn’t let himself accept it as definite, that there may yet be a way to have her see beyond his past misdeeds.

“The Abigail took me to an affordable, yet popular, tailor, arranged for a carriage to be available if needs be, and set about making certain that I knew the intricacies of table manners and the basics of popular amusements with cards and the like that I might not feel completely out of sorts in company. She managed to make me not appear a complete buffoon while attempting to dance, and she arranged for invitations to several functions, including the one at which I first came into contact with your son.” The Alpha leaned forward and finally started at pouring the tea. It was a lighter looking brew than Stiles had expected, considering the amount of time it had had to steep, and the aroma it gave out, despite being pleasant, was not one he was familiar with. He pulled his attention away from it and back to the matter at hand. “I am certain, now, that I must have offended your son even at our first contact, and wonder, truly, why he has continued to be so indulgent of me. I know now that my Abigail, Beta Katherine Argent, was from a very, very different part of her family than her niece, Alison, and that their opinions on the mixing of Werewolves and Humans could not be more unlike each other.”

The Alpha Matriarch’s shoulders and arms and everything stiffened at the mention of Katherine Argent, as did her grip on the teacup she was holding. Stiles feared that the china would shatter, that her strength would be too great, but her control appeared to hold. She set the cup aside. “Your young friend, Scott McCall, is betrothed to Allison Argent, daughter to Alpha Christopher Argent, then.”

“Yes, Alpha Hale.”

“They are a fine family, much removed from the rest of their lineage, however, as you have apparently discovered?”

Stiles squeezed one of his hands in the other so as to not bite his lip or shuffle his feet in place. “I was informed of my unfortunate taste in Abigails not twelve hours ago. I was horrified to find that the advice and lessons I had worked so diligently and blindly on were designed not to appeal to a Werewolf, but to offend, and impede any such Courting.” Stiles looked up at the Alpha before him and again felt his face fill with the shame he’d experienced the night before when Alison and Scott had enlightened him. “I have spent the last several weeks covered in perfumes that I now know were not only overpowering in their strength, but also contained the scents of holly and monkshood. I have worn my cravats and shirts loose at the neck in a way I was lead to believe would entice, yet I now understand that a ‘Wolf much prefers that their intended guard their skin, especially the line of their neck, from the eyes of others, allowing only their wedded partner the honor of seeing it. I have rebuffed your son’s gifts and touches as I thought I was appealing to the desire to chase, when in fact it was yet another way to befuddle his opinions of me and make me far less attractive a prospect for marriage in the eyes of a Werewolf.”

“You truly did not know that your actions we practically rebuttals?” The voice came from behind Stiles. The young Alpha Hale’s words were quiet, but firm. 

Stiles turned his head, as much as he could without falling from the chair or stopping himself from breathing in his absurdly cut jacket. Derek Hale looked impeccable in his day coat and finely fitted shirt and trousers, and his gaze was earnest and yet soft. Stiles wasn’t certain he could form a proper sentence in such a handsome Alpha’s presence, but he knew he must endeavor to do so. “When we came to the city, all was so new and overwhelming that I didn’t stop to think upon what I was doing. Beta Argent’s opinions were frequent and firm, and she seemed so refined and well knowledged, and I neither had the time, or the energy between Courting appearances, to question her motivations, nor her tactics.”

Derek, Stiles could hardly continue calling both mother and son Alpha Hale in his head when they were together with him, stepped closer to the chaise, and looked Stiles up and down. Stiles was glad he’d taken the time, overnight, to air out his jacket to hopefully lessen the presence of the perfumes he’d been wearing over the last weeks. He was also glad that Allison Argent had volunteered, out of a sense of duty no doubt after her aunt’s atrocious machinations, to help him dress correctly for the meeting. His neck was covered completely, and his ankles were also, and his gloves were high over his wrists. Derek stared at the tiny amount of skin showing just under Stiles’ chin, then shifted his gaze back to Stiles’ eyes. He stepped even closer, bent slightly at the waist, and extended his hand. “Then allow me, if I may, to introduce myself again to you. I am Alpha Derek Hale, of the Hale House. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance once more.”

Stiles was certain that it was improprietous for him to be doing this while seated, but he saw no way to stand without falling over his own feet and disrupting the tea and sweets that were so closely situated. He extended his hand for Derek to take, and hoped it wasn’t too rude to do so. “I am Omega Mieczysław Stilinski, son of Januz Stilinski, magistrate of Beacon Landing. It is a true pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Derek lifted Stiles’ hand and twisted it, gently, so that Stiles’ glove shifted and left his wrist very nearly on display. The Alpha leaned in closer, and instead of placing a kiss upon the back of Stiles’ hand, inhaled deeply and his eyes flashed red, and he said in a voice far closer to ‘Wolf than man, “I was able to scent your true self, even under the perfumes you had been doused with that first time I met you.” He gripped Stiles’ hand a little tighter. “I would be honored if you would accompany me, this very afternoon, to any place of your choosing. We have lost so much time already, and I dare not miss another moment.”

**Author's Note:**

> ♠♠♠
> 
> As writers we often use the A/B/O gender spectrum/designations to reflect or comment on gender and sexuality in the real world, but sometimes we fuck up when we do. If anything in this fic is offensive or triggering, it is not my intention. I’ve tried to tag as best I can; please let me know if I’ve missed anything.
> 
> Apologies for the lack of a beta; the people I rely on for such things have far busier lives than mine, and I am an impatient fucker.
> 
> This is a seriously self-indulgent piece of twaddle, please accept my apologies...
> 
> ♠♠♠
> 
> This piece of Bubblegum was inspired by **I'm Sorry - Brenda Lee:** [Lyrics](http://www.metrolyrics.com/im-sorry-lyrics-brenda-lee.html). [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIIi21XPTUw).
> 
> Find me on [Tumblr](http://inkandblade.tumblr.com/).


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